I was just out and about and I was listening to a guy talking about how all the Eastern block countries have been digressing yearly ever since the wall came down in the early 90's. Not enough kids playing the game these days because of the costs involved. Russia still produces some high end talent, but not enough to complete a well rounded team. They don't have any good defencemen. Marchenko is on their team and he can barely make the much maligned Wings' defence. Canada leaves Subban, Letang, Giordano and others home while Russia has to fill their roster with no-name defencemen. The Czechs and Slovaks used to have good teams.....now neither one can barely fill a roster. It looks like going forward Canada, Sweden and the U.S. will be the top teams. Kind of sad. I miss the good old days where the Big Red Machine and Canada would play these amazing matches. Despite all the world's best players being at the World Cup, most of the games have been pretty bland. The only games that were really fun to watch were the ones involving the young guns from North America.

---Marchenko is on their team and he can barely make the much maligned Wings' defence
---Not really his fault though. He is clearly at least #4 on our team, but I agree with the rest of your post that European teams just do not have solid dmen except for Sweden.
For Russia Orlov and Zaitsev looked good though.

Maybe it's time to divide Canada into two teams. Team East and Team West.
Kenora will be the dividing line (i.e. Ontario and Manitoba border)

The team with no excuse is the USA. They left guys off their roster who are decent NHL players like Johnson from T-bay because they wanted more grit but they lacked scoring.

Team Europe is a good concept despite what Babcock says about playing for your country only it still should be continue.
Hey...the Ryder Cup in gold if Team USA vs Team Europe and it's some of the best golf and really intense.

I see our Nova Scotia boys are leading the way for Canada. Sidney is playing the best I've ever seen him in one of these best on best affairs and Marchand is proving how good a player he is when he stays away from his usual nonsense. And MacKinnon was one of the best players for the young guns. Maybe next time instead of Team Europe we should have a Team Nova Scotia and see how they make out.

Might be a little light past the guys named here though. Maybe Joey MacDonald might come back to cover the net duties. Al MacInnis ? Probably might need to be propped up but I have no doubt he can still fire a puck.

Marchand's performance just got him a $48,000,000 contract with the Bs. It might have been interesting to see him play with Sid though if he went UFA.